I had to track one of the worst Jungles in Karnataka to retrieve the body of one of my best friends who died in helo crash. The crash site was discovered after two years and the MLI unit which helped us told me, " Sir, we have just come back from NE and this is worst that we have encountered." I brought his remains down to his family. Military service is not for weak hearted. You lose some of your best friends and also those who are either your family or as good as your family.
That officer was six months senior to me but a very close buddy.

Indian Air Force (IAF) Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) that went missing on Tuesday near Sagalee in the Papum Pare district of Arunachal Pradesh, was found today. IGP (Law & Order) Nabin Payeng on Wednesday told PTI that the wreckage of the chopper was found near Chopoyoha in the same district. The Army, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and the Arunachal Pradesh police launched a search operation and trekked through the jungle and hill areas between Yupia and Hoj Telam in Pampumpare district to locate the helicopter that went missing with three crew members on board. As per the reports by India Today, all the crew members were feared dead. The pilot of the helicopter was the Wing Commander MS Dhillon. He is the commanding officer of the unit who was on board the indigenous helicopter and was accompanied by Flight Lieutenant PK Singh and Flight Engineer Sgt Gujjar.

The helicopter was on the mission to evacuate people stranded in Sagalee and Dambuk due to massive landslides caused by heavy rains. The IAF was engaged in flood rescue mission in the state when it went missing yesterday around 3:50 PM after it took off from Pilputu helipad near Sagalee. Sagalee additional deputy commissioner J Pertin said the IAF helicopter, which was pressed into the evacuation of people stranded due to floods in the area, had made five sorties since it arrived there at around 10.30 AM on Tuesday. “In the sixth sortie to Naharlagun, the crew for unknown reasons did not take the last batch of nine civilians and took off from Sagalee,” he added. Nabin Payeng said that the search parties since morning were trekking through hills near Kheel between Sagalee and Doimukh to locate the missing chopper

The wreckage of the Indian Air Force chopper that went off the radar while on flood rescue mission in Arunachal Pradesh on Tuesday was spotted in the frontier state’s Papum Pare district on Wednesday.

Army, police and the paramilitary Indo-Tibetan Border Police personnel engaged in rescue operations, however, could not reach the spot because of the terrain, rain and poor visibility.

A radio message from the district’s extra assistant commissioner M Taipodia to the state’s chief secretary and other officials said the debris of the IAF’s advanced light helicopter had been spotted in an “inaccessible deep gorge” at Sopo Yuha about 3pm.

The spot, near Hostalam village, is about 30 km north of state capital Itanagar.

Neither the district administration nor defence officials could provide an update on the three IAF crew members and a policeman who were on board the ill-fated chopper.

“We have deployed five police teams to locate the chopper, and one of them spotted the wreckage in a deep gorge where a waterfall meets a stream. Efforts to reach the spot will resume tomorrow (Thursday),” inspector-general of police (law and order) Nabin Payeng said.

The fate of the pilots will be known only after the search and rescue teams reach the spot, he added...

...Unpredictable weather often makes chopper travel risky in Arunachal Pradesh. Almost at the same time when the IAF chopper went missing, Union minister Kiren Rijiju had a close shave with death when the Mi-17 helicopter he was in had to land in a polytechnic college field in Itanagar due to poor visibility.

The state has had a history of chopper crashes. In March 2011, chief minister Dorjee Khandu and four others died after their Pawan Hans chopper crashed near Sela in Tawang district.

That year, another helicopter crashed while landing at Tawang, killing 16 people.

Mig 23 is still in general IAF service. Retirement was planned not fully carried out.
Very low serviceability and many aircraft cannibalised.
But it is still deployed to SWAC and WAC for combat purposes.